How a UK charity cut admin from two days a week to 20 minutes a day

Caroline built All Yours Period Box CIC because she believed no one should have to go without period products. She created a volunteer-powered organisation to make that happen. But she found that her volunteers were spending more time managing emails and spreadsheets than getting boxes to the people who needed them.

There was no in-house tech expertise. No budget to bring any in. The admin kept growing and the mission kept waiting. NorthGate Collective changed that.

About All Yours Period Box

Getting period products to the people who need them

All Yours Period Box CIC is a volunteer-run social enterprise with a clear mission: tackling period inequity by making sure that anyone who can't access or afford period products doesn't go without. Through a network of volunteers spread across the South of England, they fulfil requests and get period product boxes directly to the people who need them.

It's the kind of organisation that runs on passion, commitment, and the goodwill of people who give their time freely, because the cause is worth it.

All Yours also runs Period Education by All Yours, a growing programme of workshops in schools, on-demand video resources for educators, and on-site sessions that help change how period health is understood and talked about. Together, these two strands of work tackle period inequity from both sides: making sure people can access the products they need, and making sure they have the knowledge to advocate for themselves.

The All Yours Period Box information stand at a community event, with branded banners and a community partners board.

Caroline, founder of All Yours Period Box CIC, holding a community adult box of period products.

“

All Yours is about supporting people with their menstrual health. That might involve giving them access to period products, or delivering period education so people can advocate for themselves.

— Caroline, Founder, All Yours Period Box CIC

All Yours volunteers packing period product boxes inside a storage unit.

The challenge

When admin starts getting in the way

When we first started working with All Yours, every order request came in through a form on their website. That form sent an email to a central inbox. From there, a volunteer would read it, respond, ask any follow-up questions, confirm the details, and then manually email the right regional volunteer to fulfil the order.

Across five regions, each with a regional lead and a small team of volunteers, that meant a lot of back-and-forth. Every single order required a human to read it, process it, and pass it on. A dedicated volunteer was spending roughly two days a week just managing that flow. All tracked on a spreadsheet.

It worked, just about. But it was slow, it was fragile, and it was eating up the time and energy of volunteers who were there because they cared about the mission. Not the inbox.

Before

Request arrives by email
Volunteer reads, responds, chases details manually
Manually emails the right regional volunteer
Everything tracked on a spreadsheet
Significant volunteer time spent on admin alone each week
5 regions, each with a coordination layer

After

Every request lands in one central place
Reviewed, then assigned to the right volunteer by area
Volunteer gets everything they need in one notification
Volunteer feedback and updates flow back through the same system
Around 30 minutes twice a week keeps it running
Regional coordination layer no longer needed

The result

Volunteer time returned to the mission

The admin moved from days to minutes. The team focuses on the people they're there for.

Our approach

Understand first. Build second.

When we sat down with Caroline, we didn't arrive with a solution already in mind. The first thing we did was try to understand the whole picture, not just the part that looked broken.

1

Workshops and process mapping

We ran workshops with Caroline and the whole team, mapping out how All Yours actually operated: where time was going, where things got stuck, and where volunteers were doing work that didn't need a human at all.

2

Finding the real bottlenecks

We looked at the whole organisation, not just the order process. That matters, because the problem isn't always where it looks like it is. Jumping straight to "let's automate this" often means solving the wrong thing.

3

Designing the right solution

Only once we had a clear picture of how everything connected did we design the solution. No unnecessary complexity. Just what was needed to get orders moving without someone chasing them manually.

What we built

A system that handles the admin so the team doesn't have to

The request form that All Yours already had in place stayed exactly as it was. No changes, no disruption for anyone placing an order. What changed was everything that happened after someone filled it in.

Instead of being tracked across scattered emails, every request now flows into a central management system. Every request is still read and reviewed by the All Yours team. Nothing is passed to a volunteer automatically. What the system does is make that review easier: the postcode helps identify the right volunteer for the area, and once someone on the team assigns the request, the volunteer gets everything they need in one notification. Important information and volunteer feedback travel through the same place, rather than getting lost in a long email thread.

When the delivery is done, the volunteer confirms it through the system and the record updates. Two short review sessions a week, of roughly half an hour each, are enough to keep everything moving. The admin that used to take two full days is now done in about an hour.

Regional leads, who previously existed mainly to pass information between the centre and the volunteers, were no longer needed in that coordination role. Regions became smaller and more manageable. Volunteers started getting clearer information faster, and spending their time on the thing they actually signed up for.

“

Moving to an automated system has streamlined how we work and improved communication with both our volunteers and our beneficiaries. Reducing admin time from two days to around half an hour twice a week has been liberating! Having a weekly schedule keeps us on track and keeps things moving.

— Caroline, Founder, All Yours Period Box CIC

The difference it made

Time back for the mission

A significant chunk of volunteer time that was going on admin is now going back to the mission. That's not a small change. That's real capacity returned to the people who give their time freely.

It also opened a door. Period Education by All Yours, a growing part of All Yours' work, became something the team could actively build out, rather than just keep ticking over. The operational weight lifted, and with it came room to grow.

2 days → ~1 hour

a week of admin, reduced to two short review sessions of around 30 minutes

One place

requests, volunteer updates, and feedback all flow through a single system instead of scattered emails

Room to grow

time and headspace returned to the mission, and to building out Period Education by All Yours

What's next

An ongoing partnership

Our work with Caroline didn't stop at the order system. We're now helping her with Period Education by All Yours, building out the operational side as that part of the work grows.

It's a relationship that started with sorting out a process problem, and it's turned into something ongoing. That's usually how it goes when you fix the right things.

“

Spending our precious unrestricted funds is always hard, but investing in this automation has made a huge difference and we've seen excellent value for money. It has saved us time, helped us communicate better, and created unexpected opportunities for further growth and efficiencies.

— Caroline, Founder, All Yours Period Box CIC

Running a community organisation?

If your team is spending more time on admin than on the people you're there for, let's have a chat. Thirty minutes, no pressure, no sales pitch.

Book a free call →